According to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records, Hightower was charged on July 28 with stalking, domestic violence, assault, burglary and criminal mischief.

He pleaded guilty to criminal mischief in a plea bargain and was given a two-year deferred probation sentence and required to serve 48 hours of community service, according to CBI records.

“He had violated the restraining order a couple of times,” Chuck Robertson said.

He said he last saw his daughter Saturday. The sophomore, who was studying business, told her parents she was ready to leave college and go to beauty school, he said.

“She didn’t feel college was right for her,” Chuck Robertson said.

He said she was very outgoing.

“She was a very sweet little girl,” Chuck Robertson said. “She had tons of friends.”

Abigail, who had two brothers, one older and one younger, loved to snowboard at Keystone and Copper Mountain, he said.

She also was a hard worker who had a good attitude, Chuck Robertson said.

Hightower served in the Army as a combat engineer.

He served one year in Korea, said Master Sgt. Keith O’Donnell. He was stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga., when he was released in early 2004 at the Army’s insistence, O’Donnell said. He declined to say whether Hightower was disciplined.

Hightower’s father, Mark Hightower, 46, of El Paso, Texas, said he was shocked to hear that his son was under investigation for murder.

“He was always mild mannered,” Mark Hightower said. “No males in our family had ever gone to jail for anything.”

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.

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